4 Steps to Permanent Habit Change ….. and a New Life

Habits = unconscious behavior. Forty percent or more of our daily activities = habits (2006 Duke study). Habits save the brain from work. They require far less brain processing power and utilize far less glucose (brain fuel). Habits exist to make the brain function more efficiently. So habits are intended to be beneficial. Unfortunately, most of us have bad habits. The definition of a bad habit is one that:

In order to want to change a habit you have to become disgusted with yourself. Until that time, you won’t change anything. Disgust triggers habit change. It’s a line in the sand that you cross at some point. I am assuming if you are reading this you are either one of my highly treasured friends or you’re disgusted with yourself. There’s a hard way (self discipline) and an easy way to change your habits. If you are disgusted with yourself, I have some great news. I’m going to share with you the easy way to change your habits.

The 4 Step Approach to Habit Change:

Habit Awareness: Track your daily behavior for one day during the week. Don’t pick a weekend day. Pick a work-week day. Work creates stress and stress triggers bad habits. Carry around one sheet of paper and bullet point everything you do from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed. You are actually going to like this exercise, trust me on this.

Habit Tracking List: From your list, identify every activity that = a daily habit – good or bad.

Habit Wish List: On a separate piece of paper, make a list of every good habit you want to add.

Habit Merging: Select one habit from each of your lists and merge them into one new joint habit. It doesn’t matter if you are combining a bad habit with a good habit or a good habit with a good habit. For example: Let’s say you have an existing good habit of exercising on a stair master. Layer onto this existing good habit a new good habit of listening to educational audio books or educational podcasts while you exercise. Let’s say you have an existing bad habit of drinking too much coffee. Layer onto this existing bad habit, a new good habit of drinking one glass of water. Every time you reach for a coffee you reach for a glass of water.

According to that Duke study I mentioned above it can take up to 256 days for a new habit to form. But you’re not forming a new habit. You’re co-opting an existing habit. This accelerates habit change dramatically. It only takes one or two good daily habits to change your life for the better. Success in life is about doing certain things every day that others don’t do. It’s the little things that make a difference and cause success to happen. Small, seemingly imperceptible changes, over time, can dramatically improve your life.

Tom Corley understands the difference between being rich and poor: at age nine, his family went from being multi-millionaires to broke in just one night, due to a catastrophic fire that destroyed his Dad's thriving business. For fourteen years they struggled with poverty. There were eleven in Tom's family, and they lived in constant fear of losing their home.

Driven by the desire to unlock the secrets to success and failure, Tom spent five years studying the daily activities of 233 rich people and 128 poor people. He discovered there was an immense difference between the habits of the rich and the poor. During his research he identified over 300 daily activities that separated the “haves” from the “have nots.” Tom decided to write a book to share what he learned. That book, Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals (1st Edition), went on to become an Amazon Bestseller in the United States forty times over a three year period. To give you some perspective, in order to be a true Amazon Bestseller in the United States, where you actually receive a specific Bestseller designation from Amazon, you need to be in the top 100 of all books sold by Amazon in the United States in a given day. Rich Habits did that for nearly thirty straight days, rising as high as #7, eclipsing such Bestselling authors such as Stephen Covey, Robert Kiyosaki and J.K. Rowlings. Imagine that - an unknown, first-time, self-published author selling more books than J.K. Rowlings!

Tom now travels the world, sharing his Rich Habits and motivating audiences at industry conferences, corporate events, universities, multi-level marketing group events, and global sales organizations’ presentations and finance conferences. He has even spoken on the same stage with famous entrepreneurs and personal development experts, such as Sir Richard Branson, Robin Sharma, Dr. Daniel Amen, and many others.

Tom has shared his insights on various national and international network, cable, and Internet television programs such as CBS Evening News, NBC News, Yahoo Financially Fit, Money.com, India TV, News.com Australia, and a host of others. He has been interviewed on many prestigious nationally syndicated radio shows, including the Dave Ramsey Show, Marketplace Money, and WABC.

Tom has been featured in numerous print magazines—such as Money magazine, Inc. Magazine, SUCCESS Magazine, Entrepreneur magazine, Fast Company magazine, More magazine, Epoca Magazine (Brazil’s largest weekly) and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine—and various online publications, including USA Today, CNN, MSN Money, SUCCESS.com, Inc.com, and the Huffington Post. Tom is a frequent contributor to Business Insider, Credit.com, Bankrate.com and a few other media outlets.

National publicity has garnered international media attention for Tom and his Rich Habits research spanning 23 countries. Broadcast media, online publications, and television throughout Asia, the South Pacific, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Central and South America have shared his powerful message.

In an effort to help parents, grandparents, teachers and adults become success mentors to the younger generation, Tom released his second book, Rich Kids: How to Raise Our Children to be Happy and Successful in Life in 2014. This book was the self-help category winner of the 2015 New York Book Festival and Runner-up in the prestigious 2015 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards Contest. In 2016 Tom released his third book, Change Your Habits, Change Your Life. This book provides the latest science on habit change as well as more of Tom's unique research on the specific habits that helped transform 177 ordinary individuals into self-made millionaires.

Besides being an author, Tom is also a CPA, CFP, and hold a master’s degree in taxation. As president of Cerefice and Company, CPAs, Tom heads one of the premier financial firms in New Jersey.